‘Believe’ boon for Adidas
American teen tennis sensation Melanie Oudin's success in the U.S. Open added considerable traffic for her sponsor's miadidas.com Web site, which featured her before the tournament began when she was ranked 70th in the world.
The site lets visitors design and purchase adidas shoes.
The Marietta, Ga., resident picked her own distinctive pink-and-yellow version of the company's Barricade V sneaker with "Believe" printed on the heel.
"She's done very well for us," adidas spokeswoman Linda Murphy told Bloomberg news service. Sales and customer visits to the site increased five-fold, she said.
Oudin lost in Wednesday's quarterfinals.
The next big Internet impact would be if her mother, Leslie, lands an endorsement deal with LegalZoom.com and uses it to respond to divorce action taken by her husband, John, who claims his wife has had an affair with their daughter's coach, Brian de Villiers.
No confirmation that John Oudin had a pair of adidas made for his wife with "Cheater" emblazoned on them. He certainly has a pair selected for de Villiers, but it's unlikely adidas allows such verbiage to be used.
• CAUGHT STEALING -- Cal Ripken Jr. wasn't inducted into baseball's Hall of Fame for his speed on the basepaths -- not with 36 career stolen bases.
A 4-foot statue of Ripken's famed numeral outside the Camden Yards ballpark also has proven to be not very elusive. It was stolen Tuesday night by four teenagers who were arrested about two hours later with the monument in the bed of their pickup truck, Baltimore police said.
• BEST STREAK -- The most excitement at a New York Mets game this season came on May 12 when a fan jumped onto the field naked except for a stuffed monkey tied around his waist.
On Thursday, Craig Coakley of Queens was fined $1,000 and ordered to pay the Mets $2,000 in civil penalties. It wasn't a complete loss for the plumber: His boss offered him a week's salary to make the unclothed run.
• DON'T TELL PETA -- When David Booth received $25.5 million after signing a new six-year contract to play hockey for the Florida Panthers, the winger didn't run out to buy a Bentley to replace his 2002 Chevy Camaro or move from a small condo to a mansion.
He told Steve Gorten of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel that he paid an outfitter a few thousand dollars for a guided elk-hunting trip in Colorado with his dad.
In the past few years, they had gone to Colorado by themselves the first week of September and stayed in a tent. They were better prepared last week but didn't bag any critters.
"My goal when I'm done playing hockey -- when I'm 45 -- is to open up a hunting camp," said the 24-year-old Booth, who has been hunting about half of his life. When the last Panthers season ended, Booth headed off wild turkey hunting. Last month, he went antelope hunting in Montana with one of his two brothers.
At least he hasn't hunted wolves from a helicopter like former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.
COMPILED BY JEFF WOLF LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
